“Good heart, if she think not they be all of a sort! Why, look you here—this is a riding gown, and this a junketing gown, and this a night-gown (evening dress). Two left over, quotha!”
“I would fain, Niece,” said Rachel gravely, “you had paid as much note unto the adorning of your soul as you have to that of your body. You know ’tis writ—but may be ’tis not the fashion to read God’s Word now o’ days?”
“In church, of course,” replied Gertrude. “Only Puritans read it out of church.”
“You be no Puritan, trow?”
“Gramercy! God defend me therefrom!”
“Good lack! ’tis the first time I heard ever a woman—without she were a black Papist—pray God defend her from reading of His Word. Well, Niece, may be He will hear you. Howbeit, ’tis writ yonder that a meek spirit and a quiet is of much worth in His sight. I count you left that behind at Chester, with Audrey and the two gowns that lack?” (That are wanting.)
“I would you did not call me Niece!” responded Gertrude in a querulous tone. “’Tis too-too (exceedingly) ancient. No parties of any sort do now call as of old (Note 2),—‘Sister,’ or ‘Daughter,’ or ‘Niece’.”
“Dear heart! Pray you, what would your Ladyship by your good-will be called?”
“Oh, Gertrude, for sure. ’Tis a decent name—not an ugsome (ugly) old-fashioned, such as be Margaret, or Cicely, or Anne.”
“’Tis not old-fashioned, in good sooth,” said Rachel satirically; “I ne’er heard it afore, nor know I from what tongue it cometh. Then—as I pick out of your talk—decent things be new-fangled?”